


Weaknesses

by wndrw8



Category: Bates Motel (2013)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Psychosis, Trigger Warnings, creeptasm, incestuous implications
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2013-04-23
Packaged: 2017-12-09 07:38:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/771701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wndrw8/pseuds/wndrw8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The skin on his face feels tight and uncomfortable. He scratches at it; scratches so hard that when his hand pulls away there is blood beneath the nails."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weaknesses

**Author's Note:**

> set after 1x06

Norman loves his brother, of course, but also sometimes he hates him.

It is a complicated web—sticky with emotions he can’t untangle or wash himself rid of no matter how hard he tries. They stick in his throat. Like a massive lump of dead tissue, slowly growing into this consuming agitation.

Dylan is fast. He is a swift learner, a good liar, a protector, a fighter, a man that lives his life in a very raw and on the edge way. He is good at feeling things, even things like hatred, obsession, possession, and mistrust. Dylan is unafraid. When he steps into a room he is the center of attention. Even if he doesn’t know it.

Norman doesn’t feel much of anything anymore but he does feel the jealousy, the rage.

 

Norman’s father was a big man. A strong man in many ways, his body lined with layers of muscles. He was experienced in using his body against other bodies and that is something Norman finds himself fascinated by. How people can use their bodies against others.

He looks at his arms—skinny and gangly. The same is true about his legs, his abdomen. He hates the fact that his father was so strong and he is not. He hates the fact that Dylan is so fearless when he is so terribly anxious.

“A man’s man,” he tells himself while he is sitting on his bed. “I am a man’s man.”

He tells himself over and over how strong and fierce and protective he is, but deep down his weaknesses are slowly tearing him apart.

 

Norman comes home from school on a Friday and sees Sheriff Romero’s truck parked across the street. The engine is cold to the touch, and he searches the fields and grasslands surrounding the motel but sees no one. Norman fidgets; his palms go to smooth out the wool fabric of his sweater. He is perspiring lightly. He can feel the pinpricks of a cold sweat nipping at the back of his neck as he opens the front door to the house and makes his way up the stairs.

The house is deathly still.

But then he hears a creaking from his mother’s bedroom—soft but consistent. The old wood in the flooring, probably, he thinks. Maybe nothing. Most likely.

He goes into his room, hears panting. The rasping breaths of two different people scrape against his eardrum as he sets his bag down and goes completely still. The skin on his face feels tight and uncomfortable. He scratches at it; scratches so hard that when his hand pulls away there is blood beneath the nails.

There is a crack between two wooden planks in his wall between which he can see almost the entirety of his mother’s bedroom. His heart hammers in his chest. He smells his own perspiration, the smell of something deeper and muskier.

His right eye shoots through the crack in the wood, squinting. It races violently across the landscape of his mother’s bedroom before finally finding her.

Norma is bent over a short chest of drawers. Her skirt is up and her panties are at her ankles, her wrists held firmly above her head by Romero’s strong hands. From where Norman stands, he can see the smooth skin that runs around the curve of Norma’s ass and the way her entire body shakes each time Romero thrusts inside her.

She’s not screaming. But she does have a bloody lip, and she’s crying.

Norman keeps watching.

The chest of drawers creaks and creaks and creaks.

 

An hour after Romero leaves, Norman can’t remember what he saw happening in the bedroom. But he has this image that’s stuck in his mind—this image of his mother bound with ropes around her hands and a piece of duct tape stuck across her mouth.

He chews a mouthful of cereal and rereads last week’s newspaper until Dylan comes home.

His brother’s face is smudged in the corner with grime. He reeks of cigarettes and bourbon. Dylan is the man’s man that Norman could never be and the thought of it makes the heat rise to his cheeks. Slowly he turns the next page of the paper.

“Cereal for dinner?”

Norman chews.

“Norma didn’t fix you anything?”

Norman shrugs in response before putting the newspaper down and lifting the bowl of cereal to his lips, sucking back the sugared milk. A few drops splatter onto his sweater. He wipes them off with the back of his hand. “She’s upstairs.”

His brother sighs and wipes his brow with his forearm. His mouth pinches and he shakes his head, irritated. Probably tired. Slightly drunk or high, perhaps. He puts down his backpack in the corner and stomps up the stairs. Norman can hear his brother’s frame as it lumbers across the upstairs hall, then turns to knock on their mother’s door.

He knocks three times with no response before calling her name. Finally the door creaks open slowly. A brief pause. Then he hears Dylan’s voice booming: “What the hell happened?”

And the house falls silent once more.

 

He dumps the empty cereal bowl in the sink and pours a bit of water and dish soap inside it. Then he mixes his spoon around in it, watching the bubbles froth and rise. He wipes his hands on his pants and heads upstairs to work on an essay.

The house is eerily still.

He can, of course, hear Dylan moving about in their mother’s room. He can hear the scrape of denim on denim as his older brother paces, the way he exhales in nervous cycles. Norman moves his backpack to the desk by the window and walks over again to the crack in the wall.

“This is not a solution, Norma,” Dylan is saying.

“That’s because there _is_ no solution.”

“Don’t pull this shit. You’re not—”

“Apparently fucking is the only thing I’m worth for in this town.”

Dylan exhales, rubs his mouth with a calloused palm. His eyes are flashing, blue and furious. He stretches his shoulders and Norman watches enviously as the muscles there contract and expand. Broad and powerful. Finally Dylan kneels down in front of Norma and brushes a piece of her hair out of her face, his gaze falling on the freshly forming black eye. “Are you…?”

“It’s fine. Don’t touch it.”

Norman feels his skin tightening again. His palms blister with heat and sweat and suddenly he feels dizzy. He stabilizes himself on the wall and presses his forehead against the sliver of open space. Watching. Desperate.

Too weak to do anything but stare.

Norma lies down gingerly on the bed. Her movements are slow and precise, and she hisses when her thighs brush together. Her mouth pinches tight. Her eyes close.

Dylan sighs loudly and his entire body seems to be wired with tension. He hesitates, watches Norma as she curls her hand around the corner of a pillow. He runs a hand across the top of his head before finally relenting, and moves forward. Norman stiffens. He watches without blinking; the cool air from the window behind him itches at the insides of his eyes but he can’t look away.

Dylan lies down on the bed behind Norma and wraps his arms around her waist.

He holds her there for a long time, letting her cry, being the stability she needs in a way that Norman could never be.

 

The fury blossoms up from deep inside of his chest. It blisters and smokes and rages, burning down everything in its path.


End file.
